


Saltwater

by Louffox



Category: Rusty Quill Gaming (Podcast)
Genre: Angst, Between Prague and Japan, Breaking Up With Daddy Poseidon, Canonical Character Depression, Depression, Hurt No Comfort, No Major Character Death, Sad Sea Dad, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-14
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-16 00:33:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 803
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29444871
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Louffox/pseuds/Louffox
Summary: Three times Zolf keeps his head above water, and one time he's done trying.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 13





	Saltwater

**Author's Note:**

> hey this is really sad and depressing. is it time to take out our feelings on fictional characters with the medium of unbeta'd fanfiction? you bet!

1\. No home.

Zolf stood before the sea. His mouth was closed, air regular and slow, but he was  _ screaming _ .

_ What do I do? _

The sea did not answer, so he went off and did what he could.

It wasn't much.

Wasn't great.

Cos he wasn't much and he wasn't great.

2\. No crew.

Zolf stood before the sea. In the sea. On a ship. He'd been rescued (by sailors) (by the sea) ( _ from _ the sea) ( _ why? _ ) as the only survivor of the storm. Later, he would find out that two other ships were sank and suffered total losses in that same storm. He wasn't the sole survivor of his ship. He was the sole survivor of the storm. Made sense. The ship hadn't tried to kill him, he'd not survived the ship. The ship had tried to save him. He'd tried to save himself. Neither had worked, and instead he'd been saved by the very thing that killed his mates.

_ I should be there with them _ .

He looked up at the sky, now azure and docile, then down at the water. It was choppy, but not enough to sink a ship. Enough for him, though.

He could just… be done.

He’d been swallowed by both the earth and the sea and had made it out both. And for what?

He felt hollow, like his exhale was more than air, like he was emptying and collapsing, imploding, crumbling. A nothing. 

The air he drew in did nothing to fill the empty.

Maybe water would do better.

_ Why am I here? _

_ Not to drown again, probably, _ he silently scoffed. He didn’t want to keep going, but he didn’t feel like he’d earned the right to stop.

So he drew in more unsatisfying, unanswering air, and went away to do his work.

3\. No party.

Zolf stood before the sea.

He was shaking with fury and frustration and a turbid roaring tempest of other feelings he didn’t have words for, didn’t care to name. There was a hole in him, sucking in all light and speech and everything he was and ever could be, yet somehow it still bled and oozed around the edges, the agonizing  _ feeling _ that was too big to be sadness or hopelessness or- it was too big to be swallowed by the void, and it was the void, and-

He ground his teeth until the bones creaked.

The water lapped at the dock and he wondered, if he threw himself in, would it fill the void? If he was crushed and filled and drowned then would

would it all just

would it

just

stop

He closed his eyes until he felt drawn inward. Like nothing existed. Like a point, a singularity, an imploded speck of nothing.

He stepped forward.

He stopped.

4\. No god

He stood before the sea.

As much as he could stand.

He’d been taken in by the sea, and when he’d tried to take the sea into himself, it spat him back out. It rejected him. But he’d accepted it-

No. No he hadn’t.

He’d taken everything it had given him and thrown it back in it’s face, down to his trident, his legs, his faith, his life. And now it was throwing him back out too. Denying him his final request. Refusing to take back the last gift he had from it- his own life.

He was upright on his residuums, stuck with wet sand and seaweed, and when he tucked his chin to his chest to cry and soak himself with more saltwater, he saw his beard gone white.

Marked as one who’d had a crisis of faith.

Fine.  _ Fine _ . Let him be marked. He was glad of it. Save him the trouble of telling people what happened, or getting questions. They would know by his hair he was a faithless toss-out, like so much sun- salt-bleached trash returned from the tide.

He stood before the sea and thought of all the ways he’d failed. He had even failed at this.

Should…. he try again? That didn’t feel right. That felt even worse.

He had to find something else to do. Something. Anything.

And then… there it was. It was a tiny drip, something that had leaked through his aching hollow bleeding edges, something that had chased away a tiny bit of the void.

Spite.

If the sea would force him to live, then he would find something to do with it. He would find his own life. His own power. He was done with the water.

Perhaps somewhere dry. He’d heard the old crew had disappeared from Damascus amidst a catastrophic drought. He could go there and make himself new.

The very thought was exhausting, and he wanted to wilt, but he was done with the sea and salt water. He would not cry.


End file.
